It’s me, live with it

This is a part of my campus assignment, Please bear with me if this student identification feels a bit out of place.

Andhika Nugrahatama
50405070
4 IA 08

With that aside, I’ll start writing.

Image processing, as quoted directly from Wikipedia:

In electrical engineering and computer science, Image processing is any form of signal processing for which the input is an image, such as photographs or frames of video; the output of image processing can be either an image or a set of characteristics or parameters related to the image. Most image-processing techniques involve treating the image as a two-dimensional signal and applying standard signal-processing techniques to it.

Now, though, image processing is not limited to two-dimensional processing only. We have reached the age where 3D Image processing is (rather) commmon.

Take Fastra, for instance. It is a supercomputer used in processing a series of 2D images, in this case taken from a CT scanner, and processing them into a three-dimensional object that can be viewed from all directions and even sliced to see the inside.

It was not always like this, though. I remember when “Computer image” means a 16-colour mosaic on my old C64 (I’m not that old, I’m just lucky to have seen one). And I remember playing sokoban happily with that kind of condition.

Now, though, we have taken a great step forward. With High-Definition monitors being somewhat affordable and much better tools - Photoshop, GIMP, Matlab - to process images.

And this post comes from someone who is only 20 years-old.

Just something to fill this blog in while I am working on my assignments…

It is funny, let me tell you…

No, I haven’t forgotten about this blog.I was just too busy, sorry for the lack of updates. I’ll start again by answering two questions:

What is the difference between a Geforce and a Quadro?

 Essentially, both of them is the same. for example, Quadro fx 4600 is somewhat equal to a Geforce 8800gtx. The price difference, though is between night and day. Quadro cards are labeled as ‘professional card’ by nvidia, they can accelerate performance in CAD applications and digital content creations (or so they said). But I have never tried any of them, so I can’t tell the difference.

Geforce cards, on the other hand, are usually described as gaming card. This is true and should hold true for sometime in the future. But now that Nvidia has this CUDA thing up and running (which also tickles my interest), a Geforce card can serve you more than just gaming goodness. They can be used as a physics accelerator for games, folding@home, and even video encoding device. There isn’t much use to them yet, but I ‘m pretty sure this technology will keep developing.

So if you only need to play games, get a Geforce card or two. If you are into CAD or other applications that can use the extra Quadro features, and you don’t mind paing for it, get one. 

If you are interested, there was a way to softmod a Geforce card into a Quadro, though it is not possible to do it on newer cards. Read more here. More info about these cards here (pdf download).

What is the best card in the IDR 400.000 price range?

This question is tough to answer, especially since dollar exchange value has just risen from around IDR 9.200 to around IDR 10.500. But if you want to know, I still recommend the radeon X1650pro. It is a very solid card for its price range, and it should let you play any game you want, though you will need to tone down the settings.